Susan Basso

For more than 30 years, Susan has brought innovative and transformational human resources leadership to higher education institutions — in areas ranging from strategy, organizational design and process improvement to compensation models and technology implementation.

About Susan

Susan is an innovative and transformational human resources (HR) executive, with over 30 years of experience leading clients in all aspects of human resources management.

She has led large-scale business optimization projects and has expertise in strategic planning, enterprise resource planning and human capital management implementations, executive compensation, change management, leadership development, compliance, benefits administration, collective bargaining, workforce planning and organizational design.

Throughout her career, Susan has:

• Guided an East Coast public research university through a universitywide voluntary retirement program, resulting in over $50 million of opportunity for strategic salary reinvestment.
• Led HR transformation efforts for two major universities that included development of a new HR service delivery model, an enterprisewide shared services center and new technology tools to measure performance and improve the employee experience. One of the initiatives resulted in initial savings of $5.4 million for institutional strategic reinvestment.
• Directed a large-scale compensation initiative at a Midwestern research university to ensure equitable, market-competitive and consistent compensation practices for approximately 30,000 staff members.
• As part of managing a $400 million benefit budget at an East Coast research university, redesigned the employee healthcare contribution strategy, introduced a high-deductible plan with a health savings account and outsourced several benefits services, resulting in significant efficiencies and lower risk.
• Initiated and led an East Coast research university’s first-ever dependent verification program, resulting in $5.1 million of annual benefits cost savings.

Before Huron, Susan served as the senior vice president of talent, culture and human resources for The Ohio State University. Prior to that, she held the posts of chief human resources officer for The Pennsylvania State University and Seton Hall University, as well as various leadership roles for East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania.

Susan was the chair and secretary for the Association of American Universities HR Institute. She is a mayoral appointee on the Columbus Women’s Commission and served as a member of the TIAA Client Advisory Council for two terms. She was a board member for the OSU Health Plan and ADVANCE, and was a founding board member and former president of the CUPA-HR New York Metro Chapter. Susan was granted the Pioneer Award from Leadership Pocono and is a three-time winner of the Presidential Special Performance Award from East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania. She was also honored with the CUPA-HR Emerging Leader Award as well as the Sol Stetin Award from the American Labor Museum.